Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 12:39 am

We are having trouble with our Comcast network connection at home. The Comcast tech is schedule to come out tomorrow, so hopefully it will get fixed then. Until then, I won't be able to post. Doing this from a friends house but wanted to let you know so nobody would worry.

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 7:04 pm

OK, my network seems to be back up. Turns out that Comcast was working on the lines yesterday, but their call center didn't know about it. Typical lack of communication between field-techs and the call center. I still made the tech come out to check my line levels, and they were fine. But when he saw the 4-yr old cable modem box (from Adelphia before Comcast bought them out), he said that he was required to switch out with a newer cable modem box.

It took him two attempts to get the new box registered/initialized. After the first time it kept causing our DLink router to reboot every 10 seconds. After the second initialization, then it seemed to work with the DLink router.

But then, every page I tried to enter in Firefox (like google.com) would redirect me to the Comcast.net customer signup page. But it was only doing this on the Vista computer...all of the XP computers were fine. I rebooted and it still didn't help. Then I remembered the Vista network problem page for zMUD and so I went into the Command Prompt and entered the

netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disable

line. That didn't fix anything right away, but after the next reboot, Vista was working. So maybe my old cable modem was not susceptible to whatever the "autotuninglevel" setting in Vista is, and the new modem doesn't work with that?

Who knows. All that I know is that I wasted hours of time yesterday with two techs at the Comcast call center who were clueless about why the network wasn't working, and I wasted another hour with the tech this morning who forced me to swap modems and then wasn't going to wait around while I tried to figure out why Vista wasn't working with the new box.

Not that any past cable company or network provider has been any better. The hardware techs never understand anything about networking software issues, and the call center people are always just following a stupid checklist making it impossible to talk to anybody who actually knows anything (because none of the companies will actually *pay* for call center people who are technically knowledgeable). But it's still always very frustrating.

Hopefully I won't wake up some morning to find that all of my browser sessions are getting redirected to Comcast.net signup page again.

Apprentice Joined: 29 Jun 2001 Posts: 198 Location: USA

Sorcerer Joined: 13 Jan 2006 Posts: 715

When I call in I say, "Okay, this is what I've done, so skip it." if they don't, I quite rudely tell them to shut up and do it my way and stop treating me like an ignorant peasant. If this fails to fix their stupidity I just tell them I want a supervisor. I don't have time for an ignorant call center rep who knows less than I do. I only call if I have a REAL problem, and 90% of the time I end getting transferred to one of the few real techs they have. Believe it or not they only have around 5 truly knowledgeable techs for every 200 or so call center reps. But my problems that I can't solve on my own are usually pretty bad.

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 8:32 pm

Because I move around the country a fair bit, my computer has to put up with several ISPs. One of these ISPs have problems with their automatic DNS server detection and every time I start using that ISP I have to ring them up (because I've forgotten to save them, or they're invalid) and ask for the DNS server IP addresses. It's a simple question, with a simple answer, but I'm buggered if I can find someone who'll just give me eight numbers. Even the supervisor didn't know the second time - I ended up phoning a friend and having him give me the IPs for his servers.

So yeah, call centres are balls. Worse, though, is that forced upgrade of your hardware - I wouldn't have let him bugger off while my system still wasn't working, but then round here they probably wouldn't have upgraded something that was working fine anyway.

Speaking of bad communication, I arranged to have a new bed delivered today - I live in an upstairs flat with no buzzer, so they have to phone me to be let in. The cashier in the shop assured me that they'd phone half an hour before they were due to arrive, so I thought nothing of popping into town for a few bits. I was about a mile from my flat, in the town centre, when I get a call from a delivery driver "Where's your house? The road only goes up to number 19!" - the driver's there, parked on double-yellow lines on the main road outside (my road is a cul-de-sac, too small for HGVs). So I have to run the mile back from the town centre to let him in while he's parked illegally and there's a pair of traffic wardens literally stood there telling him to push off. And all because that cashier told me they'd ring. Grr.

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:47 pm

Yeah, he left because both XP machines were working, and Chiara's Vista laptop worked after rebooting. So he blamed the problem on my specific Vista machine, even though it was working fine before he switched modem boxes. Like I said, it's just a typical situation with all TeleComs where the hardware techs don't know anything about software. And since it was obviously a Vista problem, but only with my specific computer, there was nothing he could do to help. That fact that he wouldn't swap the modem box back with the old one is what really pissed me off.

Given the obscurity of the netsh command that fixed the problem, I can't really blame him too much. I blame the people who manufactured the cable modem hardware for creating a box that is sensitive to this Vista setting, and I blame Microsoft for enabling this setting by default in the first place. Chiara's Vista laptop (from Dell) worked because this setting was already turned off (probably by Dell).

If I didn't have access to the Vista trouble-shooting guide for CMUD, I would have been screwed since it's not like the netsh command is something that is easy to remember.

Sorcerer Joined: 13 Jan 2006 Posts: 715

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:55 pm

Basically, call centre people have a wizard that they run through, a Microsoft-help kind of thing with "Did this solve your problem?" at the bottom. They start with the most likely problems and work down to the least likely, and considering that most people who phone support lines are people going "AAAAAAH IT DOESN'T WORK!" who don't understand anything - folks with some know-how normally know enough to fix the problems they generally see, so never call in, or know someone who can help without phoning in - the system generally works pretty well. I'm sure they hate people who actually know what's going on for exactly that reason ;)

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 10:37 pm

It's definitely a hard problem to solve. Fang is correct and I know most call centers are set up with a bunch of idiots who just follow a checklist because 99% of their calls *are* from people who "don't have it plugged in". I can even attest from our own support email that the vast majority is from people who just don't have a clue. I cannot count the number of emails that we get with the single sentence "It doesn't work" or requests for a license key where they don't even give their name or email address that they registered with. I'd never last in a call center...I'd get completely frustrated by the people calling who don't have any clue what they are doing.

And, I know that if a company publishes a "computer-savvy users should call this number instead" then people who are *not* computer-savvy will still call the number thinking that they will get better support.

In our case, Chiara acts as our "front-line" filter and puts all of the technical stuff into my mailbox. But we are small and don't get that much volume. Companies like Comcast with millions of customers have a tough problem.

But I do with they trained their front-line people on how to detect someone that needs more advanced help. If I start talking about IPCONFIG/RENEW and DHCP servers and stuff like that, then they should be passing me up to someone who understands.

Apprentice Joined: 26 Apr 2007 Posts: 113

I can relate to a lot of this, particularly the stupid call centres. I gave up calling my ISP a lot because there weren't many who spoke coherent english (Most call centers being held abroad meaning that there's a large accent difference,etc, results in an average of ten minutes of a thirty minute phonecall being "Can you repeat that?")

So you go through the basic steps with them. (turn power off, unplug, leave a moment, plug back in, power on.) and when it hasn't changed a thing, they insist you go through the same -again-.

I don't mind doing the test once, I can do that before I call in. However, I'm not the most call center friendly people, so after twenty minutes I am demanding to speak to the advisor's advisor, etc, hoping I get through to someone with a clue.

Sorry to hear you're going through it, but you're not alone, I daresay. ;)

GURU Joined: 23 Dec 2000 Posts: 4834 Location: USA

Unless Adelphia was swallowed up by Comcast, the switch was probably made for liability/guarantee-type issues. If it's company stuff, they'll guarantee their work and in many cases will do an exchange no questions asked. If it's after-market or you got it to work on your own, they have no control over the features it has and thus won't be able to fix the problem when it breaks.

It's kinda the same thing with Zugg's work. If one of us built a hack that subs in a better-developed mapping utility in place of the awesome piece of sweat Zugg built for us, and it actually was rock-solid enough to impress the socks off Zugg (aside from the ethical morass of hacking into his meal ticket), Zugg wouldn't be in a position to provide support even if he really liked the thing because the hack isn't part of his code.

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 6:43 am

The first question I would ask is why do I need to change the router? I'm a very why fix it if it ain't broke type of guy. I would need to see some clear benefit beyond "this is the one we're sanctioning now". So to me that in and of itself is madness. And the homesteader in my gets ticked off at the idea of someone coming into my house and telling me what I need to do with no choice.

But I understand both sides of the call center frustration. One of my first jobs was tech support (I was still in UNI) and I had to set up the CIO computer in my first week. I opened several high alerts on that task because his machine couldn't get on the network. Turns out, the LAN cable was loose. That aside I do know that 99 times out of 100 I know more than the person at the other end of the line. Unless they're level 3 tech support or higher, they tend to be newbies in the field. I try to be patient and take the approach of letting them know up front all I've tried. I also try to speak in a manner to let them know I know what I'm talking about while not being rude or condescending. I have a short fuse for all of them though.

In general I believe if I'm calling customer support then things have already gone very wrong. I should only be calling if I want new features, otherwise you've screwed.

As an aside, Zugg are you far from your local CLEC? I know cable can be first but I was never keen on the whole shared bandwidth environment. For that reason, I've been a long time believer and subscriber to DSL. Plus the cable operators in brooklyn didn't offer static IPs. I'm waiting for Verizon to bring FIOS to my neighborhood.

Apprentice Joined: 03 Nov 2007 Posts: 132

How far you are from your CLEC (I'm guessnig you mean headend here since Comcast as a whole is a CLEC and ..only in terms of phone service) really doesn't matter with cable so much. The shared bandwidth is based on how many customers are on a particular node with a set limit to how many can be on that node before they'll do a node split. It's DSL that has the problems with distance slowing them down. The shared bandwidth scare is a marketing ploy by the DSL companies and generally not really based on actual customer experience. Especially given the bandwidth capacity present. It is far more than what each customer is allocated. If there's a slow down people will sometimes think it's the shared bandwidth when it's really a network problem.

They're trying to swap routers out because old routers will soon not be compatible with the network as more areas are turned up on the proprietary backbone. They also aren't compatible with the next gen features Comcast is moving to in the next year. IPv6 for example as well as some more advanced traffic routing over the CMTS.

Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 5:54 pm

Malach is correct that distance really only applies to DSL and not cable-modem. And my neighborhood doesn't seem to be very busy so I've actually been impressed with network speeds at most times.

In fact, it seems that with the new router box my *upload* speed has gone from about 50kb/sec up to 150kb/sec, so I can upload new versions of CMUD to the zuggsoft.com server much faster now. So at least that is an improvement.

I think the issue with the router is more what MattLofton posted. It was a piece of Adelphia equipment, and not Comcast. So it's natural that Comcast would want to swap for their own box that they support more fully. Also, it seems that newer improvements to network speed will probably only work with the Comcast box, so it's normally in my best interest to swap. I have a similar situation with my HD-DVR box downstairs. I have an older "Motorala MOXI" box from Adelphia. Comcast doesn't support the MOXI (they don't have a contract with Motorola for them like Adelphia did). I've been told that I can continue to use the MOXI if I want, but if I ever have a service issue, the tech that comes out will replace it with a Comcast-supported box. Now, I may eventually do this to get a bigger hard disk on the DVR, but since the current MOXI box works, I don't really want to touch it.

Anyway, I can certainly understand that Comcast can't support the old hardware that Adelphia installed. But for all they knew, the old Adelphia router could have been causing the problem I was having (or been intermittent). A six-year-old router might be starting to get intermittent depending upon how hot it was getting, etc.

Didn't really mean to defend them, but I was pissed-off yesterday when I spent the day messing with Vista. In hindsight, it was more of a Vista problem than a Comcast problem, and I can't really expect a low-paid Comcast tech to know the inner details of Vista. He *should* have been able to call his own tech-support people and found out about the NETSH command for Vista, but that might still be too obscure. You'd need a *really* knowledgeable tech person to know about the NETSH command.

I'm also watching the progress of the FIOS stuff from Verizon. Although I'm not sure they are any better. We get our cell-phone service with Verizon and have had their own customer service problems. At least with Comcast I get a decent package deal for the Internet+HDCableTV service. Also, Comcast *has* given me a static IP address (and Adelphia before them), so that's nice too. I actually had DSL back in Los Alamos, and overall I've been happier with cable-modem. But they all have support issues.

Posted: Thu Jan 24, 2008 5:06 am

Gotcha!

I knew about the distance for DSL that's why I asked. I'm like a half mile from mine so it makes more sense for me plus the last time I had cable they were really expensive and had their older networks. Glad to see you're getting a boost now that you're swapped out. And sadly yes, we will probably always have problems with them.

Novice Joined: 26 Apr 2007 Posts: 44

Comcast in my area has horrid support. We used them for a few years before switching to FiOS.

Verizon FiOS is a godsend - cheaper and faster for us than cable modem, and their support is excellent. They respond extremely promptly to problems (the one time we ever lost internet, they sent a tech an hour after my call) and the service is extremely reliable.